Now that I have all of the Italian food ready for crush, it is time to prepare the Hungarian dishes that most of the family look forward to.
My brother sent pictures of the chicken paprikash (pic 1) and lecho (a spicy veggie stew-pic 2)
I made the porkolt (beef/mushroom stew - pics 3-4) and spaetzle (pic 5)
Porkolt is a Hungarian staple that my grandmother always fed us. There is no finer one-pot comfort food in the world...
Here is how I made it (you may want to scale it down)
- cube and trim 8 pounds of chuck steak.
- season generously with salt/pepper and brown well in a tablespoon of olive oil.
- remove beef and saute 4 very large finely diced onions. saute until very soft.
- add 6 pounds of sliced mushrooms and sauté until all of the mushroom water has been evaporated.
- take pot off heat add the meat back in, and stir in 1/4 cup of good Hungarian paprika and 3 tablespoons of caraway seeds.
- add 2 cans of beef stock (optional) and enough water to completely submerge the beef.
- add a large sprig of thyme.
- simmer for 4 hours.
you will find that the stew will greatly reduce and that the onions have broken down into this wonderful, thick sauce. serve over spaetzle.
for the spaetzle, I take 7 cups of flower, 8 eggs, a dash of nutmeg, and some salt. I beat that in a stand mixer and gradually add milk until the dough is somewhere a bread dough and a pancake mix. It should be loose, but still rather stiff.
Beat the dough for 15 minutes, let stand 1 hour, then beat again for 20 minutes.
I then run the dough through a spaezle maker...
into a pot of boiling water. I allow them to cook and then skim them off (with a slotted spoon) into a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking. When done, I strain the spaetzle into a colander and then rinse them well in cold water.